Transcriptomic signatures of ZIKV infection in patients and a cell culture model

Zika virus (ZIKV), a re-emerging flavivirus is associated with devastating developmental and neurological disease outcomes particularly in infants infected in utero. Towards understanding the molecular underpinning of the unique ZIKV disease pathologies, numerous transcriptome-wide studies have been undertaken. Notably, these studies have overlooked the assimilation of RNA-seq analysis from ZIKV-infected patients with cell culture and cell model systems. We determined that ZIKV-infection in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells, mirrored both transcriptional and alternative splicing profiles from previously published RNA-seq data of peripheral blood mononuclear cells collected from pediatric patients during early, late acute, and convalescent phases of ZIKV infection. Our analyses show that ZIKV infection in cultured cells correlates with transcriptional changes in patients, while the overlap in alternative splicing profiles was not as extensive. Overall, our data indicate that cell culture model systems support dissection of select molecular changes detected in patients and established the foundation for future studies elucidating the biological implications of alternative splicing during ZIKV infection.